The Chancellor needs an ambitious plan to save the economy Government continue to threaten economic recovery "Shameful" that bereaved families of NHS and care workers risk losing access to welfare benefits Extending eviction ban nothing more than kicking the can down the road Brexit reality falls short of rhetoric again as "no deal" threat looms The Chancellor needs an ambitious plan to save the economy Responding to reports that debt has increased to over 100% of GDP for the first time since 1961, Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said: This news must not be used as a ...
Homelessness figures demand urgent need to extend eviction ban The Liberal Democrats have urged the Government to extend the eviction ban, after official figures revealed thousands of families in private rented accommodation were deemed at risk of homelessness. According to official statistics, 38,450 households were assessed as being threatened with homelessness, with another 36,690 were assessed as homeless from January to March 2020. Around a fifth of households who were homeless or threatened with homelessness cited the end of a private rented tenancy as the reason for losing their last settled home. The figures also revealed that 2,320 households were ...
It is hard to believe that, a year ago, Ros and I were coming to the end of our Alaska cruise, still hoping to see sea otters up close and personal. The cruise hadn't been quite what we had originally intended, for which I blame the US authorities - a ban on non-US citizens driving zodiacs meant that we weren't able to do all of the things that we had intended. This put a bit of a cramp on the wildlife element of the trip. Indeed, we'd reached the last full day of the trip, and I was beginning to ...
Government must publish DfE's correspondence with Ofqual Moran: Government bumbling from one crisis to the next Government must publish DfE's correspondence with Ofqual Responding to reports that the Education Secretary has conceded it was Ofqual's decision to scrap the algorithm and move to teacher assessments, Liberal Democrat Education Spokesperson Layla Moran said: It appears that the decision to scrap the deeply unjust grading by postcode system came from Ofqual, not Gavin Williamson. Yet just days ago the Education Secretary claimed credit for this U-turn and attempted to throw the regulator under the bus. The Government has serious questions to answer ...
John Rogers takes us on a walk from the Central Line loop at Newbury Park, with its stunning bus station, along Eastern Avenue, through Seven Kings Park, Goodmayes Hospital, St Chad's Park and Whalebone Lane to the site of a World War II anti-aircraft gun battery at Chadwell Heath. John has a Patreon account to support his videos and blogs at The Lost Byway,
The new "cold war" in the far east, in reaction to China's economic power and military build-up, is set to cause the United States to strengthen its military presence in the region. There is speculation that Britain's new aircraft carrier HMS Elizabeth is going to be permanently based in the far east. It certainly will make its maiden voyage through the South China Sea. But what of the nations in the SE Asian area? Vietnam, Malaysia, and the Philippines certainly reject China's claims to all of the South China Sea. Indeed, the 2016 arbitral tribunal ruling at The Hague sided ...
I'm glad to say that after some effort we have managed to find homes for all of the 1945 Retro Hugos. The trophies themselves are currently in New Zealand and will be shipped en bloc to the USA, where our dedicated (and unpaid) team will ship them to the recipients (all of whom are in the lower 48). As with last year (which I wrote up here), some of these were easier than others, and we've made some judgement calls. The easiest were the three winners who also won last year - John W. Campbell, Ray Bradbury and Fritz Leiber. ...
Fri 21st
14:07
Layla Moran: Protecting lives and providing reassurance through the Cross-Party Coronavirus Inquiry
Each week LDV invites leadership candidates to submit one article. This is this week's article form Layla Moran This morning, I wrote to the Prime Minister in my role as the elected Chair of the Cross-Party Coronavirus Inquiry. Following over 1000 evidence submissions, we are recommending an urgent move to a 'zero-covid' strategy. The evidence, from NHS frontline staff, care home workers, health bodies, charities, scientists, bereaved families and other individuals, has sometimes been difficult to read and listen to. It has been shocking to hear about the impact of the lack of clear Government strategy in place to eliminate ...
The Liberal Democrat MP Paul Tyler is interviewed in the latest edition of the podcast Big Cat Conversations. He talks about his role in the mid 1990s, when he was MP for North Cornwall and the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food commissioned an investigation of the possibility that large exotic cats were killing livestock on Bodmin Moor. In those days Lord Bonkers was dropping heavy hints that Paul was himself the Beast of Bodmin, changing shape at night to lope across the empty moor. At my legal advisers' urging, let me say I am sure this was not the ...
Responding to reports that debt has increased to over 100% of GDP for the first time since 1961, Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats Ed Davey said:"This news must not be used as a reason for the Government to make cuts or return the country to austerity."We know that borrowing is historically incredibly cheap, so it is absolutely clear that borrowing money to boost the economy is the best way to get public finances back on track."The Chancellor must be far more ambitious in his plans to rescue the economy. The Liberal Democrats have called for a £150bn Green recovery ...
The inequality in this year's A-level results has been strongly linked to the performance of an algorithm - the statistical model that the government used to 'automatically' upgrade or downgrade results for pupils. While ministers will be called to question, for many it will be the cold, faceless, automated algorithm that is seen as the problem. We, as liberals, must be clear: the A-level disaster is not a programming error; algorithms merely reflect or even enhance the bias of their designers. The Labour Party has said the A-level algorithm was 'unlawful', the FT has described how 'the algorithm went wrong' ...
Thu, 12:56: Charts showing Hugo/WSFS award finalists and their rating counts on Goodreads https://t.co/R9yPSqK96G Love this! Thu, 13:02: RT @bbcdoctorwho: Happy birthday to @4SylvesterMcCoy and @Sophie_Aldred, the Seventh Doctor and his fierce companion, Ace! 🎁🎁 #DoctorWho ht... Thu, 16:05: RT @ArtForOurPlanet: 🌍 Wow! Protest in Belarus. https://t.co/9bltZQdKs2 Thu, 17:11: This has been brewing for a while. Are Liechtensteiners German or Austrian, in the sense of the Beneš decrees? https://t.co/KFm6qIcUwq Thu, 17:43: The Bible and the Bechdel Test - this time with added Art https://t.co/bzQV8YilCl https://t.co/NOGUdQI0k1 Thu, 18:26: Thursday reading https://t.co/dEKib0Zcqj Thu, 20:48: A tale of two train journeys: To London ...
I have a new graph I look at each day. Everything is wrong about it. Yet I still look at it every day.
Taking us into lockdown, albeit too late to prevent thousands of deaths, was one thing, but taking us back to some semblance of normality is quite another and possibly beyond the capabilities of the current UK government. The problem appears to be the haste with which Ministers are trying to achieve their goals. They want to get the economy back on its feet and start to reverse the spiralling public sector debt, which is currently in the trillions rather than the billions, but in doing so they risk reawakening the virus and leaving many on the fringes of society behind. ...
Very little today, compared with yesterday. date specified in-universe 21st August 1572: Admiral de Coligny is shot and wounded; the Abbot of Amboise, suspected of being an impostor who has derailed the assassination plans, is killed by his own allies; Steven (who is fresh from the mayhem of The Daleks' Master Plan) thinks it is the Doctor who has been slain. (as shown in The Massacre, 1966 - I used this picture for Andre Morell's birthday yesterday, but I think it's from this episode so I'll use it again.) [IMG: the-massacre-3[1].jpg]
The recent discussion about the road marking in Strawberrybank resulted in a few enquiries to me from residents about the spelling of Strawberrybank ... err ... or is that Strawberry Bank? I must confess that I have always personally spelt the lane as Strawberrybank but ran the query past the City Archivist who advises : "With regard to the name, Dundee directories, electoral registers, valuation rolls and One Scotland Gazetteer of Scottish addresses have it as 'Strawberrybank' whereas it appears as 'Strawberry Bank' on Ordnance Survey maps. According to Gillian Molloy's 'Street Names of Old Dundee' it was originally called ...
